this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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My SUV's towing capacity: 3500lbs
The car version of my SUV (built on the same platform, with the same engine and transmission and actually 4" longer), towing capacity: 2000lbs
Why? Suspension, not transmission.
The Golf you're talking about has no official towing capacity in North America because North America is actually more strict about towing safety than Europe. I've towed with my Jetta though and anything past 1k lbs was a stretch.
A Unimog doesn't hit highway speeds, they're road legal farm vehicles.
Transmission oil coolers don't require much space either and they're required if you're towing heavy loads with a manual transmission too, so packaging doesn't change.
Before sharing your opinion as if it were a fact you should make sure you actually know what you're talking about.
A Golf has a capacity of 1.5 to 2 tons. That's more than your SUV. And no American safety standards aren't higher than Europe's. It's just taken as a given that you drive differently when you're towing something and not merging onto the Autobahn at 120km/h. That's because we have driver ed and, in fact, you need an extra license to pull anything of any size.
Europe:
Golf towing capacity 1600kg
My SUV's towing capacity 2400kg
And having towed with a manual Jetta I can confirm that only a moron would tow more than 500kg with a Golf and think they're safe, and the Jetta is longer than the Golf so it's actually more stable.
And yes, towing standards are more strict in North America (SAE J2807) vs Europe (determined by the manufacturer)
I would never pull more than 1000 pounds with a golf. Irresponsible, unsafe, and unhealthy for the car itself.
I really want to see this golf pulling 4400 lbs while not being a hazard to everyone on the road. Good luck climbing a hill on a busy highway without getting into an accident or shitting out pieces of transmission on the road.
That's fucking insane, my "giant" 1/2 ton pickup is only book rated for pulling 5500 lbs.
Maximum load for a Golf is 2t, at least as built by VW. Maximum speed for trailers is usually 80km/h, 100 if they're light and built for it (all those caravans).
Long story short: You'll have no more trouble with hills than the trucks you're stuck in the right lane with.
If you're regularly pulling heavy stuff, say, horses, you want an Audi Q7 or such, 3.5t. But a Golf is perfectly adequate for a caravan or a couple of motorcycles. If you're regularly pulling bricks or logs or whatnot... don't. Lorries exist.
You try going 20km under the speed limit in Canada, and you're going to get rear ended. If you can't drive near the speed limit on level ground you are overloaded.
Your brakes, tires, suspension, motor, and transmission are not built for towing. You are going to cause an accident.
The brakes, tires, suspension, motor and transmission are rated for that load by the manufacturer.
Also what fucking speed limit, generally speaking. Lorries etc. still are limited to 80km/h on Autobahn stretches without speed limit that's why the right lane is full of them, they're not out there racing Veyrons. On rural roads you could come across a tractor that's limited to 40km/h, quite a bit shy of the usual 100km/h limit. If your compatriots can't deal with that I suggest introducing something like a scheme where people have to demonstrate that they can operate a motor vehicle before they're allowed to do it on public roads. Call it a driving license or something.
In North America we have bright orange florescent "slow moving vehicle" signs on the back of farm equipment and the like. If you are impeding the flow of traffic and you don't have a slow moving sign, you're committing an offense. Most of our rural highways have no passing lanes; the yellow line in the center indicates when it's safe to pass using the oncoming lane.
Also,, as someone else mentioned, the government dictates towing vehicle limits here, not the manufacturer. We all know how honest vw is when it comes to reporting their vehicle specifications.
I still can't envision a VW golf pulling a 4400lb trailer. I'd be surprised if the tongue weight alone doesn't lift the front wheels off the ground. My GMC Sierra with a 4.8l v8 struggles to pull my 6000lb travel trailer. According to GM, it's slightly overweight but according to traffic safety laws I can pull it, considering it's vehicle class.
This isn't Germany, people don't drive like robots, so you have to drive defensively at a relatively equal speed to the rest of traffic or some idiot will end you.
80kg max. That's why you want a Kombi if you want to pull actually heavy loads on single/twin axle trailers (up to 3.5t, then it's lorry territory), a Q7 has 115kg because wheels further apart than anything a compact could have.
I can very well imagine that European trailers put much more weight on the wheels as opposed to the tongue, the US sites I looked at speak about tongue weight as a percentage of trailer weight, not an independent value. Here, 3.5t trailer, practically zero tongue weight.
Are trailers with that front dolly axle common in europe? We practically never see setups like that aside from slow moving farm equipment, or you're pulling two or more trailers as a train
Not terribly, no, they're harder to handle as in reversing is a bitch because of the additional point of articulation and a twin axle is plenty to transport a mini excavator and if you have a mini excavator you're probably not towing it with a Golf but at least a minivan (Chassis. Could be a flatbed). If you're hauling bricks then probably with an actual lorry. It's a middle of the road solution. You also need a license, no matter the weight they're not included in the default one.
One application I see them used in is delivery of beverages, they can handle uneven weight distribution way better than twin axles, you don't want to have to double-check tongue weight every time you take out a crate from the back.
The "More weight on the wheels than tongue" thing is also about the placement of the twin axles, they usually are dead centre over here so it's easy to position that excavator so it has no leverage.
I've pulled empty hay wagons that have a front and rear axle it starts fishtailing if you try to go very fast. They had the orange triangles on them, haha.
I pull something like this https://cheyennecampingcenter.com/inventory/2022-forest-river-cherokee-grey-wolf-23dbh-bunkhouse-travel-trailer-439
With a truck like this https://www.edmunds.com/gmc/sierra-1500/2011/review/
comfortably on flat ground at 100km/h if there isn't a lot of crosswind.
We don't really worry about calculating tongue weight every time the load changes because we tend to tow with vehicles that are designed with towing in mind and have ample power. I guess that's the difference between German and American engineering, one designs things to be as efficient and conservative as possible, the other builds something far heavier and larger than what the average person needs.
I'll agree that trucks could be smaller. I drive 79 series Landcruisers for offroad use in a mine and they are tough little machines. It would have no trouble towing but they're not considered road worthy here and can only be imported as offroad vehicles. We're not hard up for space in North America so pickup trucks aren't really seen as a nuisance here like I suppose they are in Europe.